Linen Closet

Pardon my increasingly extended absence. School is kicking my rear this term, but it's been a huge reminder as to why I'm trying to simplify everything. It's also shown me that our home/lifestyle is not nearly as simplified as it needs to be. Of course, we did go and adopt another dog, which adds to the chaos a bit. But the temporary craziness that comes from training a new dog is well worth giving a shelter dog a home and the love and companionship that comes with it.

One of the big areas in which we continue to attempt to simplify is in our household organization. Now, as much as I love organization stores, it can end up being quite expensive. So when I went to re-organize my linen closet (which is a tiny little thing), I opted to not buy a bunch of fancy bins. The goal here was not to make it pretty, but to clear out what was unnecessary and to create a better functioning space.

Here's the before: 

 Um yeah, so there was one nicely folded pile of hand towels. Everything else was a jumbled mess.

I started by taking everything off of each shelf, one shelf at a time. What did we need to keep from that shelf? What did we no longer use? Half of the linen closet space was being taken up by baby blankets and hooded infant towels. Have I mentioned that my kids are 4 and 6? Out they went! My hubby took some of the old towels and washcloths to use for garage cleanup (paint thinner and things like that), the rest went to Goodwill. I decided which baby blankets were special to us and they were packed up in the garage with the few baby clothes I kept. The rest went to Goodwill or friends who wanted them.

Some of our sheet sets and towels were full of holes, so they were tossed. The remaining sheet sets were folded together and then placed inside one of that set's pillow cases. That way there aren't piles upon piles taking up room and I always know that I'll be able to find every portion of a sheet set when I need it.

I did have two larger baskets that I had gotten on deep clearance at my old job, so I used one of them for blanket storage and one for bulk toilet paper storage. I was also able to create enough room to store bulk paper towels.

Here's the after:

Paper towels on one shelf, all sheet sets (stored in pillow cases) on another, all towels on another, smaller blanket and sleeping bag storage on another, oversized blankets and guest bedding on another, and a basket of bulk toilet paper at the bottom. It's clean, I know where everything is, and there's not a bunch of unused and ratty towels and blankets taking up room. And the storage baskets were less than $10 for the both of them.

Inexpensive and organized. Just how I like it!